


Not Precisely A Role Model Moment

by Jennifer-Oksana (JenniferOksana)



Series: Tango Series [6]
Category: 30 Rock
Genre: Alcohol, Crack, F/M, Het, Romantic Comedy, Series, Television, Writer's Block, Writers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-22
Updated: 2015-12-22
Packaged: 2018-05-08 12:52:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5497709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JenniferOksana/pseuds/Jennifer-Oksana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Liz has writer's block. Liz has other problems. Kenneth has the solution.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Precisely A Role Model Moment

“So I have this idea for a sketch,” Frank said, gesturing at the sky. “ _Bromance._ ”

Toofer rolled his eyes derisively. “Because it’s never too late for a Brokeback Mountain joke,” he said. “Juvenile.”

“Dude, it’s not a Brokeback joke. More like an ED ad. ‘Is your marriage suffering from Bromance?'” Frank said, using his best pitch voice. “Signs of bromance may include your boyfriend texting during football games, long fishing trips, and an overuse of the word dude.”

“I think you just like saying the word bromance,” Liz said. It was an okay idea. Not like she’d managed to come up with anything better. All week. Ever since that picture had come out in the Post and everyone had been absolutely fine with it, Liz had been blank.

“Yeah, probably,” said Frank with a shrug. “Anyone got anything better?”

“Hmm. How about words you say because they’re fun to say, not because they’re relevant to the conversation?” Lutz asked.

“Oh, like affair,” Liz said. “You know. ‘I’ve settled your affairs…'”

Everyone stared at her, and Liz shrank back into her chair.

“Are we going to have girl time now?” Frank asked. “Because there might be two people in the universe who don’t know about you going at it with Donaghy.”

“Hey, I might not have meant that at all!” Liz countered. “You decided that I meant my affair when I said affair, not me.”

“It was very Freudian, Liz,” Toofer said.

“Thank you, I _know_ ,” Liz replied snappishly. “Do you guys want to have girl time now, or can we keep trying to make this sketch viable?”

“Titmouse,” Lutz said. “That’s a word I like to say just because of what it sounds like.”

“Good one,” Toofer said.

The writers went back to discussing fun words while Liz felt her ears burning with shame. Everything was going so well, and _she_ was the one who was not cool with the casual acceptance of her affairs.

This was why she was going to die alone with goldfish.

* * *

“Hey,” Pete said after the writers’ meeting. “Are you okay? You seemed a little blocked in there.”

“Well, there’s that whole part where I made an idiot of myself,” Liz said. “And there’s the part where everyone is being really nice to me. And where I spent the last three weeks on fire, so maybe it’s just an inevitable off week.”

Pete patted Liz on the shoulder. “I’m sure that’s it.”

Liz sagged. “It’s so not,” she confessed, looking at her cuticle and thinking seriously about biting it. “I’m pretty sure it’s that everyone is being so nice about Jack. Even Jack is being nice about it, and it’s freaking me out, and my GOD, I am a complete weirdo masochist, aren’t I?”

“Yep,” Pete agreed. “So you weren’t expecting acceptance?”

“No,” Liz said. “I was expecting lectures. And long discussions of why Jack is going to leave me for Lindsey Lohan. And why I was totally abandoning my principles with the SAG strike looming on the horizon. And inappropriate questions from Jenna about babies and Nantucket. And Jack sassing me about my new outfit from Kohl’s.”

“Instead of…?” Pete said, still doing the supportive pat-on-the-shoulder thing. Was he not listening to a word she was saying?

“The barista said the Post should respect my privacy. Some old lady in the elevator who I’m now pretty sure was Anna Wintour said that I had an effective mystique for a woman wearing sneakers. No one is _yelling,_ Pete,” Liz reiterated. “I’m freaked out and I can’t write, and I’m totally not in the mood for…never mind that last one.”

Pete frowned thoughtfully. Liz wished that he would tell her that in two or three days, she’d get used to nice, and gracefully adapt to a low-stress life as Jack Donaghy’s non-secret mistress.

“Sounds like you thrive on conflict,” Pete said.

“Thank you, Captain Obvious,” Liz said dryly.

“Or it could be you thrive on the disapproval, in which case you two are doomed. Because everyone approves. My wife saw the pictures and said she hoped you were getting married soon,” Pete said in a low voice.

“She thinks everyone should get married,” Liz replied.

“ _Jenna and Tracy_ thought you guys looked cute,” Pete said.

Liz looked at her shoes, feeling absolutely like she would like to throw them at Pete’s shiny bald head.

“This is no good,” she said. “What am I going to do?”

Pete grimaced for Liz’s dilemma. “Sorry, kid,” he said. “It sounds like you chose wisely, and you are cursed with people who approve of your boyfriend, and general good fortune. You might just have to accept it.”

“Rats,” Liz said. “Okay, I’m going to go find somewhere that makes enormous greasy hamburgers and drown my sorrows. Because I need to. Badly.”

* * *

And that was how Liz Lemon found herself at a cheesecake bar during daylight hours, sipping a Long Island Iced Tea while despondently gazing at a guy in a pair of tighty whities who was making fire truck sounds.

The worst part? He wasn’t as attractive as Jack, either.

* * *

Kenneth was beaming when Liz dragged herself back to Rockefeller Plaza. He was always smiling. Probably he was from the planet of game show hosts, where frowning was punished by death.

“Good afternoon, Miss Lemon, how was your lunch?” he asked.

Oh, crap. Yeah. She was supposed to eat food along with the five Long Island Iced Teas. That would probably have been a good idea.

Liz realized Kenneth was looking at her funny.

“Lunch was fabulous,” Liz said, trying to smile. “Very liquid.”

Kenneth didn’t look convinced. Liz smiled bigger. And now Kenneth’s smile was going away, and he was shaking his head slightly.

“Miss Lemon, are you _drunk?_ ” Kenneth asked incredulously. “That’s not something I’d expect from you!”

“It was an accident,” Liz said. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go hide in my office.”

That was a very, very good idea made difficult by the part where she was way far away from her office and she’d have to pass through the writers’ room, and if she arrived accidentally drunk in there, everyone would ask if Jack had left her for Gisele Bundchen, even though everyone _knew_ Gisele was happily with Tom Brady.

Tom Brady was way hot. Hotter than the man-stripper she’d wasted lunch on. But then again, Jack was hotter than that guy, too. Jack had gotten hotter with every drink, too. And cooler. And…oh, God, was it because they were popular? Was that why she was having an adverse reaction?

“Miss Lemon?” Kenneth asked.

“I am _that_ girl,” Liz said mournfully. “That indie freak girl who cannot handle popularity. I am the person who thought Hole’s Live Through This was overexposed. Oh, god, I am a walking market research cliche.”

“That was a real interesting non-sequitur, Miss Lemon,” Kenneth said with big eyes and absolute sincerity. “Is this a metaphor about your dirty illicit affair with Mr. Donaghy?”

“Yeah, I guess it is,” Liz said. Wait. He’d called it dirty. “Everyone seems okay with it. Are you not okay with it?”

Kenneth scuffed his shoe on the ground and wouldn’t meet her eyes. “I think it creates a serious conflict of interest on your show’s set, while also making Jesus uncomfortable,” he said. “But I don’t want to say anything, because the Bible says to judge not, and you need to do what makes you happy! Even if that happens to be fornication.”

She was totally blaming the Long Island Iced Teas for this, but before Liz knew it, she had planted a fat, wet kiss on Kenneth, one of those comedy smackers that got the big “oooooooh” from Fox audiences.

“Miss Lemon!” Kenneth cried, pulling back. “You smell like Mr. Jordan after his lunchtime sabbaticals! And you’re exclusively fornicating with Mr. Donaghy! How dare you?”

He actually slapped her with an outraged gasp. Liz couldn’t have been happier, even though that was totally drunk logic talking. Oh, hello, drunk logic! That was a skit. That was one that would be perfect for Tracy, too.

“You’re right, Kenneth, that was very, very wrong of me,” Liz said primly. “But you have saved my relationship. Also, I apologize in advance for the sketch. And for the massive yakking I will probably do in about two hours that someone will make you clean up. I will make it up to you later, okay?”

“I declare, you’re a different and much less admirable person when you’re intoxicated,” Kenneth said.

“Yes. Yes I am,” Liz agreed, the grin coming back on her face.

She’d have skipped away, but that was undignified. Liz also suspected it would make her stomach shake and that would probably not be good just about now.

* * *

Of course, Jack knew everything when she ran into him for some hangover-lessening water. Well, he knew some of it.

“I heard Kenneth slapped you for kissing him,” he said. “And that you drank lunch.”

“I had writer’s block, and he made it go away,” Liz said glibly. “Also, I was tipsy.”

“Yes, I’m aware,” Jack said with a smirk. “Is it really so important to you that people disapprove of us? Even Tracy is less perverse. He just does whatever he’s told he can’t do. You get unhappy because you can do whatever you want without complaint. This is not normal, Elizabeth.”

“I know,” Liz said. “But it was bad. I was listening to these awful sketch ideas about bromance and titmice and then I was watching a man make fire engine sounds. I had to do something, or it would have ended with a mountain of Hershey’s wrappers and my salty tears of indie angst.”

Jack chuckled. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have given young Kenneth the beating of his life in the lobby over my paramour’s honor, then?” he asked.

Oh, he HADN’T. Except he probably had. And that was bad, because Liz had kissed Kenneth and not vice versa, and also, who did that? Next she’d find out Jack had the white dueling gloves and slapped other rich guys with them for insulting his honor.

Liz could almost see that, except that it was very French instead of Irish. Probably Jack just punched them in the nose. Also, having someone smacked for her idiocy was really, really embarrassing. Though probably Jack had used her as an excuse because Jack was totally paranoid about Kenneth as his potential evil nemesis.

“You didn’t,” Liz said. “Come on, you wouldn’t beat Kenneth up.”

“Believe it or not,” Jack replied, twinkle in his eye. “Are we still on for tonight?”

“We are. I will even be one hundred percent sober,” Liz said, trying not to bolt to her writers to find out if Jack had decked Kenneth. That was so what he wanted her to do. So she had to, like, counter-game him. Which required a public _get on the tiptoes, peck on the cheek, quick smile_ move. “Don’t do too much damage to television until then.”

He chuckled warmly. “You _must_ still be drunk.”

“Drunk on inspiration!” Liz said, squeezing his hand. “And you, of course.”

Oops. That had been too perky.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Lemon. I didn’t actually hit him,” Jack said, snorting.

Jack was starting to know Liz way, way too well. Worse yet, Liz was starting to think she liked it that way.

“Oh, thank God,” Liz said with a sigh of relief, letting go.

Not quite enough to touch in public, though. Someone might approve of that.


End file.
